The Vanguard 86 methodology
Our distinct value proposition lies in our innovative approach to crafting marketing strategies that propel business growth. By integrating leading global philosophies with proven techniques from successful campaigns, our formula is reliable, effective, and tailored to your marketing initiatives.
Attract
Our approach starts with determining how to draw prospects to your business. We concentrate on Active Buyers — those individuals actively seeking solutions to their identified needs. These buyers have entered the market with a readiness to purchase, significantly enhancing the likelihood of engagement and successful closure through your sales channels.
Our marketing is meticulously targeted, deliberately avoiding broad tactics like billboard advertising. Instead, we prioritise search-based keywords to ensure your brand's presence when an Active Buyer seeks solutions. This phase seamlessly integrates the principles of Inbound Marketing and They Ask, You Answer to deliver impactful results.
Convert
Our strategy ensures your potential customers transition into valuable contacts and promising leads. This crucial phase is dedicated to crafting conversion points that align with the stage in the buyer's journey. We map out the path your buyers take, from recognising their challenge to selecting the best solution.
By understanding and mapping their questions and considerations, we align our content strategy for maximum impact. This guarantees that premium content, often referred to as lead magnets, delivers substantial value and converts visitors effectively. Success at this stage is characterised by a growing database of well-suited contacts, steadily advancing through the buyer's journey.
Engage
Not everyone is ready to make an immediate purchase so we nurture leads and maintain a strong presence with converted contacts. Instead of blasting your database, our monthly marketing strategies share valuable and educational content that resonates with their journey. This approach opens a dialogue to present the value of your offerings.
We foster a conversation through thought leadership, prioritising buyer's needs and a customer-centric mindset so your company message naturally follows. The true measure of success is when these contacts evolve into potential sales leads.
Underpinned with relevant marketing data & insights
At Vanguard 86, we value meaningful metrics over superficial numbers. While impressions and sessions provide useful insights, they do not define success. That's why we establish solid targets, SMART goals, and transparent KPIs, all aligned with your paramount objective — revenue.
While marketing can sometimes be swayed by individual preferences, we eliminate these biases by adhering to data-driven strategies. We transform subjective opinions into rigorous tests and thoroughly analyse the results to optimise your campaigns. Welcome to the innovative era of performance marketing.
Customer-centric strategy
Why should a prospective buyer care about you?
Which challenges do you help buyers overcome? What opportunities do you enable them to realise? Active buyers search for precise solutions and prefer not to translate your features into tangible benefits. Without clear answers to the above questions, you risk being lost in the noise of advertising.
We advocate for your clients, challenging jargon, and the industry-focused bubble within which you operate. This is the backbone of our strategy.
A proven methodology
Our programme activities are intricately connected, each playing a vital role in your marketing success. While it may be tempting to prioritise one aspect over another, doing so could inadvertently diminish your overall results.
Blog articles drive sessions and convert contacts into leads, social posts and emails effectively promote your content to contacts, and premium content expands your lead database. Though the emphasis of these outputs may vary, the underlying strategy remains consistent and robust.
Data-driven activities
When it comes to marketing, no-one provides better feedback than your target audience. While we all have preferences, the only voice that really matters is that of your Active Buyer. Your audience provides valuable insights through their engagement, or lack thereof, with your content.
When essential metrics indicate underperformance, we are committed to challenging our assumptions and refining our strategies. By collaborating with a range of businesses, we identify successful tactics and integrate them into your marketing efforts, accelerating the iteration cycle.
Could our innovative methodology be the key to your success?
Are you questioning if this approach suits your industry? Tired of marketing agencies that offer grand promises yet result in frustration? Dedicate thirty minutes to discover a fresh marketing strategy and evaluate its alignment with your growth objectives.
Book a discovery callFrequently asked questions
Certainly! As a data-driven organisation, we have the metrics to validate our approach. Our multi-year strategies clearly demonstrate the compounded benefits of consistent inbound marketing.
Consider a Timaru-based shed company that initially struggled to achieve 3,000 website sessions a month when we began collaborating with them in 2017. Today, they surpass 10,000 sessions each month. Notably, the majority of this traffic is driven by blogs, illustrating the effectiveness of our methodology's Attract phase.
Currently, 80% of the businesses we partner with report that our articles are their primary source of website traffic. Many observe contact-to-opportunity ratios of 30% and an unqualified deal close rate ranging from 20% to 40%.
This success is sustainable. Even businesses we've ceased working with continue to see significant traffic from our content. Our premium materials consistently generate leads for their CRM and our marketing automation sustains efficiency well beyond our active involvement. This exemplifies enduring business success.
Traditional marketing, often referred to as outbound marketing, targets an enormous audience to achieve comparable outcomes. Channels like billboards, print adverts, radio adverts, and direct mail must connect with thousands of individuals in the hope that a small percentage will respond.
In contrast, inbound marketing and the Vanguard 86 methodology focuses on engaging those actively searching for solutions. This positively impacts your organisation by reducing the number of unsuitable leads, allowing your sales team to concentrate on promising opportunities.
Your client might be an organisation, yet the challenges you address are fundamentally human. Our approach seamlessly integrates into both B2B and B2C environments, as it centres on the individual at the receiving end of the digital experience. Whether you're engaging with a professional pair embarking on their first home, the architect crafting the design, or the timber supplier located in another city, our goal is to ensure your presence is felt whenever someone seeks solutions online.
The primary distinction when adapting this approach from B2C to B2B lies in the increased number of stakeholders and the diverse challenges they face. Some of these individuals may need to advocate for your solutions within their teams, which is precisely where our content excels.
Yes. Since our marketing is customer-centric and data-driven, we need to audit customer interactions and analyse whether assets are driving sales opportunities. The more fragmented your tech stack, the harder it is to measure the effectiveness of our work.
While it is conceivable, we have seldom observed it succeed in practice. Often, businesses become overly centred on themselves, causing their marketing to mirror this inward focus. As a result, they overlook the interconnectedness of their activities and fail to promote a crucial asset to the appropriate audience.
Collaborating with us to implement your inbound marketing means partnering with a team that sees your value proposition clearly and objectively. We have the opportunity to question, "Why does the customer care about this?" and adjust your marketing strategy to align with their needs.
In saying that, we firmly believe in enhancing our inbound marketing efforts with internal activities. This may include social posts that highlight your business culture, additional articles that delve into technical points, and emails designed to engage your internal audience effectively.
We create each month's plan based on your strategy and key metrics. While the type of activity remains consistent, the specifics are always fresh.
The scope details the fixed deliverables, enabling us to effectively reach diverse audiences with tailored messages. When we identify an opportunity, we can adapt the plan accordingly.
When we identify something that works, we ensure it becomes a regular component of your plan. If you can execute these outputs in-house at the same level, we encourage you to take charge. In such instances, we will explore new approaches for you to ensure you maintain consistency.